


Memory or Fantasy: Excerpt from Alexis Barden's Memoir

by dreamofroses



Series: Alexis Barden's Memoir on the Incorruptible [2]
Category: French Revolution RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 13:02:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20026279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamofroses/pseuds/dreamofroses
Summary: Maxime and Alexis return from their vacation in the US and, ah, reaffirm their relationship.Honestly, there's not much plot, though.





	Memory or Fantasy: Excerpt from Alexis Barden's Memoir

**Author's Note:**

> So, Thermidor came around again, filling up my Tumblr thread with Robespierre, and I remembered how much I like writing about him. So, I decided to write this. It was a massive headache to write because I have no confidence in my ability to write explicit scenes and I'm just hoping it makes a moderate amount of sense at this point.
> 
> Without further ado, Maxime and Alexis getting it on...

Maxime and I arrived back at our apartment in Paris the morning of the fifth of January 2024—almost exactly one year since I met him. We had had a long and exhausting flight, only slightly less stressful than the flight at the beginning of our vacation. We were sullen and silent the entire journey from the airport to the apartment. My head was full of those circling thoughts you get when you are tired and uncomfortable, none of which are ever productive.

After lugging my baggage up the eight flights of stairs to the apartment, I unlocked the door rather more aggressively than necessary and pushed my suitcase over the threshold, allowing it to stand where it rolled to a stop around the edge of what nebulously might be considered the living room in the open floor plan of the apartment. I kicked my shoes off and only just had the presence of mind to hang up my coat so that it would not wrinkle in a heap on the floor before I marched off toward my bedroom.

About three-quarters of the way there, I reconsidered and returned to Maxime’s side. He was watching me in a sort of daze, both tired and jet-lagged—the latter being a state he had not yet learned to cope with. I took him by the hand and led him to the bedroom.

I went into the closet and took out a pair of Maxime’s pajama pants. “Naptime,” I explained as I handed them to him.

Maxime took the pants willingly and went to the bathroom to change. I took the opportunity to quickly change into a set of my own pajamas, comfy but unsexy.

That was something I did not want to think about. Maxime and I had not yet had sex and we were both dancing around the subject. Maxime had his own reasons for doing so, I’m sure. Mine were varied, but significantly less numerous now that we were back in Paris. The subject would come up soon, though.

When Maxime came back from changing his clothes, he immediately started to pull the sheets for his bed out of the closet. I stopped him.

“We can put your bed together later,” I said.

Maxime hesitated.

“We shared a bed for two weeks,” I said. “What is one more nap?”

I had ulterior motives, but they mostly had to do with not wanting to bother with opening up the bed in the living room. I was too tired to think about other, more pleasurable, physically exhausting activities. Indeed, I must have fallen asleep almost immediately upon laying down.

When I woke up, it was dark. I suspected that it wasn’t so much because it was late as because it was winter. I felt a lot better than I had when I lay down—jet lag is never as bad coming back from the United States as it is going there.

I got up carefully, trying to avoid jostling Maxime, and went out into the main room. The unnatural light of the city left the room half-bright and full of shadows. I shuffled over to the kitchen and turned on the light over the stove. The clock read 22:15, something more than a light nap from when I’d gone to sleep.

I filled a mug with water and put it in the microwave to boil while I took out a bag of caffeine-free green tea. I stopped the microwave with three seconds to go so that it would not ring and wake Maxime.

I took my cup of tea with me and curled up on the sofa to listen to the city below through my window. A year ago at this time, I had just arrived at the club with Nico, Olivier, and some other of Olivier’s friends. It had been noisy and not really my scene—I was only there for my friend on his birthday. I’d purposefully had just enough to drink to dull my sensitivity to my surroundings. Then Olivier had gone and gotten phenomenally drunk and that had been the end of the party. And I had gotten in a taxi to go…not home.

The half-light of the apartment reminded me of the Place de la Concorde that night. I barely needed to close my eyes to picture Maxime in his greatcoat and peruke. I smiled at the memory of how my stomach had dropped when he pronounced his name. I had been horrified.

I heard footsteps and opened my eyes to see him standing there in an undershirt and pajama pants, rumpled, still waking up, mostly blind without his glasses.

“Hey,” I said softly.

“Good evening,” he replied. He paused a moment, fighting to be awake enough to remember how to walk, then approached and sat down on the sofa next to me.

“Do you want some tea?” I asked, setting my mug down on the coffee table and preparing to stand up.

“No, thank you,” Maxime replied.

I settled back down a little uncomfortably. I clasped and unclasped my hands, not quite sure what to do with myself.

Things hadn’t been awkward like this between us before, had they? I wondered. But it was different now. In America, the transition from acting to reality had felt merely like an extension of the charade. But here, it was just us—no relatives to deceive, no faces to be put on. A little voice in my head couldn’t help but wonder if Maxime would take back everything now that we were home.

I took Maxime’s right hand between both of my own and I felt him tense under my touch.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

Still, it was different now that we were back home in the place where we’d spent so long carefully avoiding each other, almost touching but not. And now we were.

The room was full of us—our things, our scent. When I thought about it, I couldn’t remember when the transition from mine and his to ours had happened, even with something I was so sensitive to as scent. It had probably happened a long time ago already, but I had been too preoccupied to notice.

I leaned in and kissed his cheek, rough with a full day’s growth of stubble. I left my lips there a moment, lingering, and then pulled back to wait for his reaction.

Maxime took my face between his hands and kissed me firmly, close-lipped.

I leaned into his kiss and ran my tongue over his lips and he opened his mouth for me to explore the textures of him before retreating to let him taste mine. When he pulled his tongue back into his mouth, I broke the kiss, gently biting his lower lip.

I paused for a moment then, waiting to see what sort of reaction Maxime would have. It was hard to see his expression in the semi-darkness and the only thing reflected in his eyes was the glow of the city from through the window behind me.

I pushed him back lightly and he went without resistance, lying across a little more than half the sofa. Our eyes were locked the entire time.

Without breaking that gaze, I slowly lifted my shirt up over my head and dropped it on the floor. Underneath, I wore a lounge bra similar to the one I’d worn under my pajamas during our vacation. It was nothing fancy—no lace or silk or plunging lines—but this one was just slightly too small and it pushed my breasts into an almost-spilling-over-the-top sort of cleavage which I’d always fancied was attractive.

I waited a moment to let Maxime’s eyes wander, though I wasn’t sure how well he could see me without his glasses. I made a note in my mind to make sure he was wearing his glasses next time. Then I leaned down and kissed him again. He yielded much more quickly to the invasion of my tongue with this second kiss.

Maxime’s left hand came to rest on my bare skin, just avocet the waistband of my pajama pants. His right hand found its way to my left breast. I couldn’t feel much under the heavy padding, so I gently removed Maxime’s hand and pulled the bra off, tossing it on my discarded shirt.

Maxime’s hand returned immediately to my breast and he began experimenting with varying means of caressing it. I sighed my appreciation of his attention between kisses and I pushed my right hand up under his shirt to toy with his nipple in reciprocation.

When I’d had enough, I dragged my fingers slowly, so slowly, down the length of his abdomen to the edge of his pajamas.

“May I go lower?” I whispered against his lips.

Maxime was quiet for several seconds, his hand on my breast gone still.

My heart was pounding. I never took the lead the first time I was intimate with someone, preferring to observe and learn what they liked before making my move. I was terrified that I had made a mistake in changing that habit for Maxime.

“Yes,” Maxime finally replied, voice low and breathy.

I kissed my way down his chest and caressed the bulge of Maxime’s erection before I slipped my hand under the layers to find it in the flesh. It was hot and full in my grasp. I danced my fingers up and down its length a few times before pulling my hand back to tug at the waist of his pajamas.

Maxime lifted his hips obligingly and I pulled off his pajamas and underwear in one go. They were pleasantly warm as I dropped them on top of my own discarded clothes.

I turned my attention back to Maxime’s erection. It was an attractive erection if, in part, simply by virtue of being Maxime’s. I especially liked the way the foreskin lay smoothly with the pink head peeking out.

I looked up to see Maxime watching me intently. Maintaining eye contact, I placed a kiss on the tip of his penis and then took the head into my mouth, pushing the foreskin down with my tongue to place with the head’s flared edge.

Maxime fell back against the sofa with a groan and I dropped my gaze down to the task at hand. I kept pressure on the most sensitive points of his erection, probing the underside of his head with my tongue and darting under the edge of his foreskin. I played with his scrotum in my left hand, rolling his balls between my fingers. My right hand traveled wherever it felt good to touch—his inner thigh, across his belly, up to his chest.

I glanced up from time to time to watch him squirm under my touch, stomach clenching and unclenching beneath his undershirt. He made the most delightful sounds, deep moans half-caught in the back of his throat like he was trying to stop them but couldn’t.

Eventually, we arrived at a point where Maxime pushed me back, away from his erection. I sat back, a little disappointed that he didn’t want to let me make him come with my mouth. He was close. I could tell from the way his erection wept and the rhythm of his breathing.

“Would you like to move to the bedroom?” I asked to break the ensuing silence between us.

Maxime nodded, perhaps not trusting his voice after fighting all of those moans.

I stood and helped Maxime up, leading him by the hand all the way to the bedroom. Just inside the doorway, I let go of him to go turn on the bedside lamp. I turned around and shimmied out of the rest of my clothes as Maxime watched me. He pulled off his shirt and crossed the space between us to take me in his arms.

I clung to him as we kissed, pressing as much of him against me as I could, indulging in his heat, the texture of his skin, his hair.

He’ll never know how much I miss

He pulled me down onto the bed. I kissed him for several more seconds before I rolled away to open my bedside drawer. I hunted around but didn’t find what I was looking for. No condoms. Of course not. It had been almost two years since my last boyfriend and I hadn’t planned on having sex in the apartment so long as Maxime lived with me, let alone having it _with _Maxime.

I pulled out the lube I used for touching myself to stall for time as I frantically tried to decide what I wanted to do. I trusted my birth control, but disease was still a question. I hadn’t been tested since my last boyfriend and Maxime had never been tested to my knowledge. The reasonable answer would have been to be content touching with our hands, ignoring that I’d already had my mouth all over him, foolish girl. But I was the woman who had taken a complete stranger into my home and let him stay despite the fact that all evidence should have told her that he was delusional and potentially dangerous. Reason wasn’t always my strong suit.

But first, I introduced Maxime to the magical substance that was lube. I squeezed a large dollop of it into my hand and demonstrated the lube’s fine qualities along the shaft of his erection before I gave him some and directed his hand between my legs, to my clit. He immediately went lower, looking for my entrance, but I guided his fingers back up and showed him how best to tease me.

I squirmed under Maxime’s touch and let him know with enthusiastic gasps and moans what he was doing to me. He was a little clumsy with his handling of my body, but he was earnest and the fact that it was him did more for me than the most skilled fingers of a stranger. I reached my peak, shivering with excitement.

Dripping with lube and my climax and hungry to be filled up inside, I pulled Maxime close against me.

“I want you,” I whispered in his ear.

Maxime kissed me and then sat up to guide his erection to my wet cleft. We groaned in tandem as he slid into me. When he was deep inside, I held my arms out to him and he leaned down into my embrace.

He kissed me and the started to move. His rhythm was slow at first but began gaining speed, especially when I started rocking my hips to meet him. He was quite frantic by the time I hit my second climax and I pulled him over the edge with me. I felt his heat spread within me before he collapsed, trembling, in my arms.

We stayed like that for several seconds before he pulled out and rolled over onto his back beside me. I lay still a moment, feeling his seed leak out of me.

Then I got up and went to the bathroom to clean off. And indulge in a little guilt. That was foolish and irresponsible, and I shouldn’t have done it. But I knew that I would do it again a hundred times over in a similar situation.

The guilt didn’t last long, however, displaced by a giddiness that, for all that I loved Maxime as a man and not as the historical figure I’d respected for so long before meeting him, it was, in fact, Maximilien Robespierre who was naked and disheveled in my bed and whom I was about to go back and cuddle with. The feeling was better, though, when I remembered that to me he was not Robespierre, whose memory belonged to everyone, but just Maxime who belonged to me alone.


End file.
